Column: Congress, not the president, spends or appropriates, tax dollars

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Congress, not the president, spends or appropriates, tax dollars

By GLENN GILBERTFirst of all, let’s get one thing straight.

“Sequester” can be a noun, according to Merriam Webster, so let’s not quibble about that.

It may be an abomination to the language that verbs can become nouns and vice versa (think about “impact,” now used as both), but that is a battle that has been fought and lost by self-respecting grammarians.

It is simply too cumbersome to refer to “sequestration.”

That said, there’s a lot the public can learn from the sequester — a term referring to something that is set aside, in this case 10 percent of federal discretionary spending.

It’s a good refresher to the U.S. Constitution and what should be the proper functioning of the branches of government.

The sequester makes it clear that it is Congress that spends, or appropriates, tax dollars. Therefore, the constant Republican refrain that President Obama has added trillions to the national debt is false.

Also, the mindless across-the-board nature of the sequester could easily be altered by a majority vote of both chambers of Congress — House and Senate — if signed into law by the president.

The public by now should know that the sequester only affects one-third of the nation’s $3.6-trillion budget. The rest of the budget consists of mandatory spending, the largest portions of which are Social Security and Medicare. This spending could be changed by Congress, but lawmakers know they risk the gravest political peril by doing so. Such action would require courage, a quality that is in short supply in Washington D.C., which is something the public already knew.

The sequester’s 10 percent reduction is applied both to military and domestic programs. It amounts to $85 billion for the remainder of this fiscal year and $110 billion annually hereafter, unless, of course, changed by Congress.

It is easy to see that $85 or $110 billion is a pittance in a $3.6 trillion budget.

Nevertheless, the impact is eventually likely to be felt at airports, where the Transportation Security Administration and air traffic controllers are affected.

Also, allocations to distressed urban schools and programs such as Head Start and federal grants for policemen will be trimmed.

Notice, however, that unlike in the private sector, apparently no federal workers will be laid off. Furloughs — unpaid days off — and perhaps some hiring freezes, yes; layoffs no. Government doesn’t function like the rest of the world.

Perhaps this period of the sequester also will cause taxpayers to wonder why wasteful government programs could not be shed instead of just blindly cutting everything by the same amount.

Surely there are some unnecessary programs, aren’t there?

In the old days, Sen. William Proxmire, a Wisconsin Democrat, issued periodic Golden Fleece Awards to wasteful government programs. He cited 159 such dubious endeavors over the course of his career.

Today, Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma, publishes his annual “Wastebook,” a listing such boondoggles. He asks:

“How many of our friends, families and neighbors could be fed with the nearly $1 million the government spent taste testing foods to be served on the planet Mars?

“How many nutritious school lunches could have been served with the $2 million in financial assistance provided to cupcake specialty shops?

“The Highway Trust Fund, which has been bailed out several times over the last five years, is a good example, as billions of dollars intended for transportation are wasted on questionable projects that do little to fix congestion or other transportation problems. An unused Ohio bridge -- not even connected to a road or trail -- received a half-a-million-dollar makeover this year.

“An Oregon town will pay $388,000 for just five bus stops — enough to buy two houses in the same town.

“And in West Virginia, thousands of dollars were spent to reconstruct a historic streetscape out of Legos.

“Would the dollars spent on these transportation projects not have been better spent to fix some of the 22,158 deficient bridges plaguing our national highway system?”

Now it is certainly true that eliminating all such waste would not make a significant dent in the national debt. The sequester, on the other hand, maintained over a decade, would trim $1 trillion off the debt, which is currently about $16 trillion.

Nevertheless, our current sequester politics hopefully will refocus our attention on effective government programs, instead throwing out the good with the bad.

Perhaps Congress can be persuaded to get back to its basic responsibility of actually evaluating federal programs and making some choices.

Above all, the sequester is certainly shining a spotlight on the appropriate branch of government.

It is Congress that holds the power of the purse.

Glenn Gilbert is editor of Journal Register Newspapers in Michigan. Contact him at glenn.gilbert@oakpress.com or 248-745-4587. Follow him on Twitter @glenngilbert2.